


gloria patri

by hellstrider



Series: jesus wept, man [1]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Boston, Catholic Mythology, Church warning, Churches & Cathedrals, Crisis of Faith, Demons, Excommunicated Priest!Tormund Giantsbane, M/M, Magic, New Orleans, No Homophobia, Priest!Jon Snow, Priests, Roman Catholicism, White Walkers, Witches, ayo, exorcist AU, just leaving it out, like im tiredt, like so loose, loosely based loosely on the exorcist show, the wall - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 00:44:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20331244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellstrider/pseuds/hellstrider
Summary: And then Catelyn had reached out and touched the face of the bible on his desk.“It’s Bran,” she’d said, voice gripped in a vice; “he won’t eat. He won’t sleep. Can you come?”





	gloria patri

**Author's Note:**

> i love this typa shit
> 
> anyways, hellstrider has been deleted from the archive (by me) and moved to wattpad! check her out
> 
> https://www.wattpad.com/user/virgilaudacia
> 
> she's been revamped and edited. give her a view.
> 
> anyways welcome to the exorcist au. this is just part one. part two coming prolly next week.

It’s been five years since he’s set foot on the estate grounds. If Jon’s being honest, it hasn’t felt like that much time has passed by at all; he hasn’t missed this place, with its cold grey walls and its seemingly infinite rooms, some gone untouched for so long even Catelyn forgot what was inside them.

After the murder of his father, he’d planned never to come back again. Arya and Sansa visited from time to time at his parish in Salem proper, and Robb was ever the proficient writer, sending more letters than Jon could ever keep up with. The very last person he expected to wander into his humble chapel was the matriarch of the Stark family.

It wasn’t until he’d finished morning service last Sunday that Catelyn had made herself known, and Jon – Jon had been struck by the sight of her. She was pristine, of course, from her suit to the coils of her red, red hair, but her _face_... God, he’ll never forget how _white_ she was, how wan, how _exhausted. _

How _afraid._

She’d jumped when he shut the door of his office, stared blankly at the small cross on the wall and stirred her tea with an absent-mindedness that had set Jon’s teeth on edge. Jon had ever been uncomfortable in Catelyn’s presence, ever since he was a child and became old enough to understand that she hated him, but this was a different kind of discomfort. Deep in the pit of his stomach, Jon had known something was very, very wrong – it had been years since Ned’s death, so to see her like that…

And then Catelyn had reached out and touched the face of the bible on his desk.

"It’s Bran,” she’d said, voice gripped in a vice; “he won’t eat. He won’t sleep. Can you come?”

What else could he say but yes? Little Bran was only twelve, so young, too young to be rebelling in any way his sisters or even Jon himself might have. So he’d told Sister Regina he was headed to see his family in the country – “oh how lovely, Father, you do so need a proper rest,” – and was on a bus north the next day.

He prays he's just sick. Catelyn refused to tell him anything more, despite how he'd pried. Bran is sick. Bran is sick, and Jon will be there for him, and he'll be fine.

Bran is sick.

He’d felt it the moment he set foot beyond the gates of Winterfell. He feels it now, walking slowly down the long gravel drive between the vast maples that lined the way, their leaves gone from green to red at the cusp of autumn. It’s not anything he can put a name to, not anything that is even comparable to anything Jon has felt before. It’s a thickening, almost – like the air has become so still and so quiet it’s begun to solidify.

_Bran isn’t sick_, Jon thinks miserably, halting midway down the drive with his hands in his pockets. _Fuck me. I should've brought Sam._

There’s a part of him – the logical part, the part that belongs to his father – that rebels instantly against it. Against the belief, against the superstition and the fear.

Jon isn't much of a priest - even though they gave him a parish, for some unknown reason - but his father would've made a worse one. See, Jon didn't believe much in God - it was complicated - but devils? He knew devils were very real. His father would rather have put on a blindfold for the rest of his life like any other good Catholic, but Jon? Jon knew better. 

The heavy _presence_ only gets worse the closer Jon gets to the house. By the time he’s rapping his knuckles against the wide oak front doors, Jon is clutching the rosary in his jacket pocket. The well-worn beads are slick and cool between his fingertips, familiar and comforting, no matter how foolish he knows it is.

It’s Sansa who answers the door. She looks _– well._ She looks about as pale as Catelyn had, with shadows under her usually bright eyes and her lips bitten red and chapped. Jon’s chest tightens at the sight of her, but Sansa’s eyes go wide when she finally registers who it is that’s come calling.

“Jon?” she chokes; Catelyn must have kept his arrival a secret. Jon catches Sansa when she throws herself at him for a hug, and then there’s the sound of bare feet on stone and a second figure launches herself at Jon, clinging like a limpet.

“You’ve gotten so _tall_, Jesus, you’re like a damn weed,” Jon laughs, and Arya pinches his side. He ruffles her hair and gently squeezes Sansa’s hand when she clutches at his arm.

“Did you come because of –“

Sansa cuts off, and Arya shoots a glance to her older sister. She’s got a cut lip, but she ducks away when Jon tries to catch her chin to get a better look.

“He’s a _priest_, San,” Arya says wryly. “Of course he’s here about Bran.”

So. His suspicions were right. _Damn. _They’re both suddenly tense as he looks between them. Sansa has a bruise on her upper arm. Jon swallows hard and looks up as footsteps echo from the second floor. Catelyn appears at the banister, hair pulled back into a mussy bun and eyes gone red from tears.

“Good thing we have one in the family,” Arya says, trying for brevity, but it falls flat. Jon meets Catelyn’s stare, and his heart sinks down into his gut.

“You two stay here,” Jon says, and when Arya makes a face, he shoots her a look. “_Don’t_. Just – _stay here.”_

Jon mounts the grand stairwell, and the air is heavy, heavy in his lungs, clinging to his skin. The starchy white collar around his throat seems to tighten; Catelyn folds her arms over her chest and jerks her head, wordlessly commanding Jon to follow. The presence that he can feel becomes a taste like static at the back of his throat when they turn down one of the unused corridors, lined with doors Jon has never tried to open before.

Catelyn pushes open the door at the very end of the hallway, and Jon is hit full-force by the sheer _smell._ His jaw tightens on instinct and he puts a sleeve to his nose, swallowing back a cough. There’s a stench of stale sweat that overwhelms everything else, but underneath Jon can smell piss, bile and something that he can only call _rot. _A force presses down in the center of Jon’s chest, and if it weren’t for the fact that he’s barely twenty-eight, he think he might be having a heart attack.

Wide windows overlook the gardens behind the house. Grey sunlight pours across the pale wooden floor, unused for so long it’s got a permanent coat of dust. A single cot stands in the center of the room, and beside it sits the old doctor that’s tended their family since Jon was a boy – Luwin is as stoic as he’s always been when he looks up, but there’s a fear edging his grey eyes that Jon’s never seen before.

There’s a cross on the nightstand, and a glass of water. Jon takes all of it in, takes in the high rafters and the parlor windows, then turns his gaze with a heartbeat like a jack-rabbit’s to the boy laying on the bed.

He should’ve brought Sam. Sam knew more about this than Jon did. Sam knew about _everything _more than Jon did.

Bran’s hair is greasy, lying flat over his skull. His skin is sallow and damp, as if he’s been suffering a fever. Jon walks carefully around the end of the cot, where the stench of piss and sweat is at its worst. Gingerly, Jon touches his brow, and finds it so cold to the touch he might think Bran was a damn corpse were it not for his too-quick, too-sharp inhales.

“How long has he been like this?” Jon asks, and Bran’s limbs jerk a little.

“Like this?” Luwin shakes his head. “A week? Maybe less.”

“Did you take him to the hospital?”

Catelyn bristles immediately. “Of _course _we did,” she snaps, and Bran’s head tilts. “What kind of mother do you –“

Jon immediately withdraws from Bran, feeling the intense desire to leap from one of the windows. He meets Catelyn’s burning stare and doesn’t look away.

“Cat,” Luwin sighs, and finally, finally, Catelyn huffs and looks away, shaking her head as more tears rush down her cheeks.

“They ran all the tests,” the old doctor says wearily, looking to Jon. “Every one they could think of. Some I didn’t even know about. It only – made_ it_ worse.”

“It.” Jon narrows his gaze. “You _really_ believe he’s –“

“I don’t know what else to call it,” Luwin exclaims, sounding a little more than harried. “For God’s sake, look at him! The other day, he gouged Arya’s face with his nails. He’s attacked Sansa, even little Rickon. Look at him, Jon, for pity’s sake, just –“

Jon does, and a bitter burn rises in his throat. Bran has dirt under his nails, and they’re frayed, some split right to the beds. His hands are scratched up, as if he’s been pruning Catelyn’s roses without gloves on, and then there’s the smell and the _presence, _the thing that settles along Jon’s spine and stays there.

“Even if he were – were. Possessed. I’m no exorcist,” Jon says then. “You _know that,_ right? Do you understand how hard it is to make the Diocese listen about cases like this?”

“I told you it was a stupid idea,” Catelyn says bitingly, looking to Luwin. “Why did you even come, then! You came all this way just to – just to tell me you can’t _do anything?”_

“Cat –“

“No! Look at him, Jon! He’s _dying! _My little boy! Your _brother!”_

_They were never my siblings until you needed them to be, _Jon thinks, and immediately feels horribly guilty for it. On the bed, Bran stirs, and then, out of nowhere, bursts into tears. Catelyn rushes to the bedside, hushing him softly, and Jon meets Luwin’s gaze with a stone in his throat. The old doctor looks so damn tired – he’s toeing eighty.

Bran keeps crying and whimpering, hands curling into the greying blankets. Jon wraps the rosary in his pocket around his hand and the presence goes so thick he begins to sweat a little across his brow.

_God, if you're listening..._

“Give me a minute with him,” Jon hears himself say, and when Catelyn looks up sharply he continues, “I just – need a minute. If this is a performance for attention –“

“How _dare you –“_

“Cat.”

Luwin gently takes her arms, and the Stark matriarch looks about two seconds from throwing Jon bodily from the room, but when Bran writhes and bares his teeth in obvious pain, something breaks visibly on her face. Gently the old doctor pulls her back from the bed, and Jon keeps his gaze averted as he steers her from the room.

The door clicks shut, and Jon is left alone with Bran. Almost as soon as the lock flips, the boy goes still and quiet, and Jon sidles around the cot again to the stool that Luwin vacated. Bran’s back to the quick little pants that make Jon’s lungs ache in empathy, and he watches his younger brother for a long, lingering moment, disbelief, logic and instinct all warring with one another in his chest.

“I don’t think this is an act,” Jon says finally, and Bran’s eyes move fast under their lids, “but I’m gonna need a little bit more than waterworks.”

_You know how to get to the truth._ Jon takes out his phone and opens the recorder app, setting the device aside on the nightstand. After another beat, he reaches into his pocket and fingers the rosary, withdrawing it as well. He shrugs out of his pea-coat and sets it aside, drapes the rosary over his knuckles – and a slow, grating stutter begins to roll from Bran’s lips.

It almost sounds like an old car engine, but warped and stretched, drooping at the edges. The hair along the back of Jon’s neck stands immediately on end, almost so sudden it hurts. Gooseflesh rushes down his arms and Jon thinks for a moment his skeleton might be trying to make an escape.

The grating stammer grinds through the room and Bran’s head tilts, dragging jerkily over his pillow. Jon watches, suspended somewhere between fascination and horror, as his jaw rolls and the muscles in his face twitch as if they’re getting used to being felt again.

And then Bran’s eyes snap open, and Jon feels his stomach hit the floor. They’re white – entirely, absolutely white.

When he speaks, Jon forgets how to breathe.

“_Ego autem non noceat, sacerdos.” _It’s not Bran’s voice. It’s not Bran’s, not at all – but it’s not quite anyone else’s, either. “_You are very young. Too young for that collar.”_

Bran reaches out then, and Jon can only sit in stunned silence as the boy runs his fingertips over his knuckles, just barely skirting the rosary’s gleaming mahogany beads. A groan echoes through the room then, deep enough Jon can feel it in his bones.

“_Breathe, priestling. Slowly, mind, or you’ll choke on your own tongue. I have fought too long to get you here for you to die beside me.”_

Jon does, and he chokes anyway. A click, not unlike the chitter of a raven, arcs from Bran’s mouth and his hand falls away. Feeling a little like he’s run twenty miles in under a minute, Jon eyes the boy that lies in the bed in the shape of his brother and speaks with a voice that is his but isn’t.

“_Can you not speak, priestling?”_

“I can,” Jon rasps finally. “What – you wanted me here? You hurt the girls, Bran. You hurt –“

Slowly, Bran’s head oscillates in a kind of nod. _“They kept… putting things in the boy. Needles. Tubes. I don’t… like the things they gave him. Stifling things. Dumbing things. The boy will be fine. I must... Leave soon, though. If he is to survive.”_

“Forgive me if I don’t believe –“

“_A-a-a-h,” _the thing using Bran’s body sighs, gratingly, “_but you don’t believe in anything, Jon Snow. Even that little trinket is a lie. A bastard boy, sold to holy men because _mommy _was jealous.”_

The presence around him shifts, becomes something almost – soft, despite the fact that Jon can’t breathe. Despite the stench and the way Bran looks like he’s about to become a corpse, the presence grows gentler, as if it’s settled down from a fit of panic.

_"Listen carefully, priestling. Are you listening?”_

“As well as I can.”

Broken fingertips meet his knuckles again and Jon watches a sort of sorrow cross over Bran’s face, one that no child could ever comprehend, much less feel.

“_Something is coming,”_ Bran whispers, “_I had… to warn you. The boy – he was… a vessel. He will recover. Hear me well, priestling. There is – a darkness coming. One that cannot be stopped.”_

_Reckon it’s already fucking here, _Jon thinks wildly, and the thing must hear him, because Bran’s head shakes and his mouth cracks open to let out a groan like a banshee.

"_The White Walkers – they come. The Others. They were put behind… a Wall. But it was not strong enough. Listen – the b… boy… I do not have – long – “_

Jon’s nose furls into a sneer. “White Walkers? Are you –“

“_LISTEN!”_

It’s not so much a word as it is a force. The windows rattle in their panes, the floor shivering – Jon watches in horror as a darkness ripples over Bran’s face, veins shuddering from blue to red to black and then to white. He looks – he looks like a dead thing, and true, absolute terror like he’s never felt before unfurls deep in Jon’s gut.

“_You must listen.”_

Whatever it is – _demon_, Jon’s mind supplies, _it’s a demon_ – sounds suddenly exhausted, a pitchy whine threading through its words when it speaks.

“_They will come, and they will ruin – ruin you,”_ Bran wheezes, “_my name – my name, my name – I will return, priestling. I will – I will – my name, my name, my name –“_

A warbling, wrenching sob cuts Jon to the quick.

“_Thr-r-r-r-r-re-e-e-e-e-e eyes-s-s-s-s-s,” _Bran wails, and Jon lurches forwards to catch him when he suddenly surges upright and nearly hurtles off the edge of the cot. “_Three-eyes! Three-eyes! Scorned! I will – I will – “_

There’s a sound, then, a sound that Jon feels more than hears; it’s not unlike the rush of wind through leaves, or the breaking of a bone. Jon doesn’t know what it is, truth be told, but as soon as it’s come it’s gone again and Bran – Bran bursts into messy, snotty tears against Jon’s chest.

“Mama,” he pleads, and Jon is _numb, _numb to the fucking core, “mama, mama –“

Everything happens around him as Jon stays still. Time itself becomes a thing that drags its heels; the door bursts open, and Catelyn drags a sobbing Bran away as one of Luwin’s hands comes over Jon’s shoulder and grasps tight. For a moment, Jon thinks it might be the only thing that holds him together.

\---

The first one he calls is Sam. Bran is in the hospital in Boston and making a miraculous recovery from a disease no one could name. Jon hasn’t slept, hasn’t showered, hasn’t changed. Sam finds him tucked away in a booth in a bar in Boston, collar gone and sleeves rucked to his elbows, burnt-out cigarette between shaking fingers. The other priest takes one look at him, sighs, and orders two whiskeys, double and neat.

“What happened, Jon?” Sam demands quietly. “Is Bran alright?”

Jon takes a drag from a new cigarette, ignoring Sam’s disapproving look.

“He’ll – he’s fine. You can’t tell _anyone,_” Jon says lowly, heartburn like a lit candle in his chest, “about what I’m about to show you.”

Sam is the _only _one he trusts with this, the _only _one he could go to – the diocese would throw him in a padded cell for this, even with the recording. Sam nods, big brown eyes horribly earnest, and Jon grabs his arm like a man drowning.

“_No one, _Sam,” Jon says between his teeth, and Sam, loyal, unflappable Sam, just grabs his hand and nods, slower and firmer.

Jon passes over his phone and earbuds. He drinks half his whiskey as he watches Sam’s face go from perturbed to white to utterly, horrifically fascinated. Jon nearly chews through his lip as Sam rewinds the recording and listens again, his eyes practically bulging from his skull. Sam listens to it three more times – and Jon can’t blame him, he’d had it on repeat all night in his hotel – and then carefully removes the earbuds and puts the phone on the table between them like it’s a bomb.

Sam grabs his whiskey. Jon purses his lips as the other priest finishes it in one go, then waves down a waitress for another round. It’s not until the next glasses of amber liquid have been set down and the waitress departs that Sam lets out a long, shaky sigh and puts his hands over his face.

“You’ve seen one before,” Jon hisses quietly. “Was it anything like that?”

“I’d hoped never to see another ever again,” Sam says, “_Jesus._ Forgive me. _Jesus fucking Christ.”_

“Was it?” Jon presses.

“No,” Sam says, looking like he’s just stumbled off of the world’s wildest roller-coaster. “The one I saw was way worse. It took three days just for Father Mormont to get the damn thing’s name out of it. This one – tried to tell you. No prompting. And it’s gone?”

Jon nods slowly. “As far as I can tell. You think it’s a trick?”

“Could be. Always good advice to never underestimate these things.” Sam runs a hand through his dark hair. “But the – the _White Walkers?_ That’s – deep mythology. Like, before _Christ’s_ lifetime deep, but – every mention of the Walkers are in texts the church have declared heresy. There was a priest, a couple years ago, he said. Well, he said he’d faced them.”

“How?” Jon narrows his eyes. “The thing – it said they were behind a wall?”

“Well, rumor has it he used _dark magic_ to get rid of them,” Sam admits at a rather dramatic whisper, in Jon’s opinion. “He was –“

He makes a slashing motion over his neck and Jon’s brows shoot up.

“_Killed?”_

“No, Jesus. They, uh. Kicked him.”

“_Excommunicated_. You can say it, Sam.”

“I don’t like to.”

Jon runs a hand through his dark curls and slumps back in the booth, heart still racing. It’s lucky it hasn’t given out yet. Sam chews his lip, then murmurs, “I can’t believe it left.”

Neither can Jon. But Bran was pink-cheeked again and as vibrant as he’d always been, talking incessantly about getting back to climbing as soon as he was out of the hospital. It was as if the – thing – had taken all the illness with it when it fled, and Jon rubs at his chest as he frowns and bites the inside of his cheek.

_I have fought too long to get you here._

And, well, wasn't this sort of thing his duty?

“So this priest,” Jon says, looking up to Sam, “he’s still alive, huh?”

\---

All told, it doesn’t take half as long as Jon thinks it should have to find the excommunicated priest. Finding him is startlingly easy, once Sam breaks down and agrees to help him – though Jon is somewhat dismayed when Sam says, “looks like the last address that was current for him was… oh.”

“What?”

“Louisiana,” Sam says, a little perplexed as his nose wrinkles. “He’s down in_ Nola.”_

Jon peers around his tiny office in his tiny parish - and this can't be what it was all for, not when shit like demons were out there, right? - then shoots a glance to Sam. The other priest is silent for a moment, then heaves a sigh.

“Yes, I’ll look after it. I don’t think this is a good idea, mind you. I’ve heard – stories. You know they call him Giantsbane for a reason, right?”

“And what’s the reason?”

“I’ve no idea. I just know you don’t earn a name like that without some doing.”

Jon chews his bottom lip. “I need to know if it’s true, Sam.”

Another sigh. “I know you do, Jon.”

“Some – _demon_ – had Bran. This is our _job."_

“I know, Jon.”

“It won’t be long.”

“It better not be.” Sam runs a hand over his face. “I’ll get Edd to do mass. I can’t talk in front of crowds to save my own arse.”

Jon books a ticket to Louisiana as soon as he’s able, puts in time under the guise of taking care of Bran, which he feels a little guilty about, especially when Sister Regina titters about it and praises him for rushing home for his brother.

It is for his brother, Jon thinks. It is. This is a duty, this is bigger than parishes and prayers.

He’s never been further south than New Jersey, so when Jon steps out of the plane and is hit with a wave of humidity even in the middle of September, he’s briefly arrested on the spot. It takes Jon a little to adjust, and by the time he’s stepping out of a cab in front of his hotel on Bourbon Street, he’s sweat through his shirt and feels as if he’s walked through the mister over the veggies in the grocery store.

The hotel is sweet and quiet despite it's location. Jon showers and dresses in regular clothes – a light Henley and jeans, as he’s certainly not about to wear shorts – and by the time he’s hitting the street it’s darkened enough that the lamps have flickered on and New Orleans has come alive in a new kind of way. Fairy lights drape across the wide, cobbled roads from French-style balconies; music pours out from open-faced pubs and cafes, spills over the balconies and makes the air alive in a way that seems to settle Jon’s nerves.

It smells of marshland, spice and booze. Jon weaves through the packed streets – even in September, New Orleans is thriving with tourists – and digs into his pocket for his phone. He passes palmistries and signs for tarot readings, stores advertising amulets and all manner of magical things; he passes gothic boutiques and Voodoo supply shops, bookstores and bars, until he comes to the pin on his GPS and his phone calmly announces, “Arrived.”

Jon looks up and finds himself face-to-face with what looks like a bar, though it’s painted with pentacles, huge Seals of Solomon on the white frosted windows and a heavy, intricate cross over the front door. The swinging sign reads ‘THE WITCHLING’, and Jon narrows his eyes.

He’s never had the prejudice against witchcraft the church thought he should. If he’s being honest, he’s never really been the most exemplary priest – but he wasn’t exactly asked if he wanted to go into the priesthood in the first place, was he? He wasn’t asked, and then they went and stuck him in Salem, and the covens there were always full of people Jon found to be amazingly accepting, beyond kind.

So he doesn’t hesitate to push through the black front door; the place is cramped and absolutely packed to the gills with both patrons and décor. What looks like a full apothecary lines the back wall of a nook to his left, amber glass jars glittering under the lights. Celtic knotwork trails along the ceiling, and fiddle music drifts through the soft, jovial chatter.

There are shelves full of old leather tomes dotted here and there between the old, English-style booths. The bar is wide and sweeping, the bartop made of black granite; it’s sleek and sophisticated but also somewhat homey, comfortable and welcoming. It smells like myrrh and sage, and a man in one corner is reading tarot for a young woman with wide eyes and her hands over her mouth. It's as if someone has taken a castle room and planted it in the middle of Bourbon Street. He feels like he's stepped onto the set of a movie.

“ ‘Bout time you showed up,” says a voice from the bar, and Jon turns to find a young woman with golden hair watching him with a curve to her red lips. Her eyes are a vivid amber, almost – almost impossibly so. He wonders if she’s wearing contact lenses. She looks around his age; her face is pretty, and she wears rings on every finger and at least seven various amulets around her neck, pendants glittering in the deep V of her green tank top. 

Jon’s brow furrows and the young woman jerks her head to the side; Jon follows the gesture to a door around the end of the bar that reads ‘THE CHAPEL’ in huge, curling blue neon letters set over the dark wood.

“One you’re looking for is through there,” the woman says, and she reaches under the bar to pull out two beers. “Bring this down for me, would you, Father?”

“How –“

But the woman struts away then, drifting towards a pair of newcomers at the bar, and Jon turns his gaze to the door, feeling about as numb as he had back in Winterfell. What was the saying, the one from Alice in Wonderland that Arya loved so much? Two impossible things… Whatever it was, Jon thinks he might’ve hit Wonderland; he looks down at the beers – one of them the type he prefers – and then looks back to the golden-haired woman.

She’s already watching him, watching him like she knows him. When she winks it seems to jar him back to life, and Jon looks back to the door marked as the Chapel.

Well. Now or fucking never.

The Chapel door swings open to reveal a long metal stairwell that leads down to a metal door. Jon sucks in one cheek and dithers for a moment – _man up, Snow – _before stepping down and shutting the door behind him. As he descends the stairs, the pulse of heavy electronica begins to thrum through the walls, along with a roar of… applause?

Whatever he’d been expecting when he pushes through the metal door at the bottom of the stairs, an underground fighting ring was probably the very last thing on his mind. Life, it seems, was ever finding new ways to trip him up. Jon slides through the door and into what looks like what used to be a cellar. It’s packed with people, all looking a little rougher than the lot upstairs, and in the center of the room is a wire cage where two men go at one another with fists and feet.

_God, if you’re listening,_ Jon thinks mildly, _it’s me, Jon. What the fuck is going on. What the fuck._

Slowly, he pushes through the crowd until he comes close to the cage. One of the men inside has a face like a pug, and there’s a nasty split on his bottom lip. He’s brutish in the way a bulldog is and laughs when his opponent punches him in the gut. His opponent – well. He’s taller, and he’s _huge, _bare to the hips where his jeans sling low_. _Literally, Jon doesn’t think he’s ever seen a man with so much muscle, packed tight under tanned and freckled skin.

The man’s hair is red as fire, slicked back with sweat across his skull; he has a beard to match, tapered under his chin. When the two in the cage circle one another, Jon gets a glimpse of blue, blue eyes and sharp cheekbones. A rosary of red beads falls over the man’s thick chest, and he’s – well. He’s covered in _scars._

So many scars. Jagged lines over his stomach, over his ribs, over his arms. There’s a cross – a _cross_ – branded on his hip and a tattoo of the sacred heart smack in the middle of his chest, knife so realistic Jon thinks it might’ve just been put there by some magic.

A fist slams into a jaw, and Jon nearly lurches back when the pug-faced man hits the ground. Roars and cheers rip through the crowd and Jon is rooted to the spot when those bright, vivid blue eyes flicker up from the groaning mass on the ground and affix right over him. The man swipes at a spot of blood on his bottom lip with the back of one wrapped hand, and a grin flickers to life as he steps over the other man.

Someone pulls the cage open for the red-headed beast inside it. Jon can’t move, can’t even think anything other than _that’s the priest, oh my fucking God,_ and it loops through his head on repeat as the man all but swaggers towards him. The former priest reaches for one of the beers and Jon gives it up, well aware that half the crowd is watching them curiously now.

“Fuckin’ finally. Thought Val was fucking with me when she told me you were coming, little priest.”

His voice is like smoke over the harbor, like the turn of leaves in the fall. The former priest cracks the beer with a bare hand and downs what has to be most of it before he tosses the bottle aside with a careless swing of one arm. It shatters and Jon feels like he’s the one who’s just had a drink, a little more than light-headed.

“You’re.” Jon clears his throat, glancing sidelong at their audience, “you’re the priest. The one – you’re Giantsbane, yeah?”

A flash of white teeth; the grin is deadly. “Not a priest, little bird. Not anymore. They could burn you just for being here, you know. Pull that pretty collar away and then what do you have left?”

Jon arches a brow. “Seems like you’ve done alright.”

Giantsbane grunts and sways back on his heels, a curl of muscle that makes Jon think of a viper about to strike.

“Call me Tor,” the man says after a beat, sticking out a bloodied hand. “Heard you could use some help, Jon Snow.”

Jon doesn’t break eye contact. He thinks he’ll be made weak if he does. When he shakes Tor’s hand, he grips it tight, and the man’s lips curve. His hand is huge and warm and strong, and it dwarfs Jon’s but he matches it in strength.

“I could,” Jon admits. “Have I come to the right place?”

A laugh that makes him warm down deep, and Tor grins.

“Nah, little bird. The wrong one, but in_ all _the right ways. That, I can promise you.”

And Jon – Jon believes it.

**Author's Note:**

> dunno fam!!!! we love it!!!!!!!


End file.
